News from the Assisted Suicide Bill Committee room - an eight hour session, which began with a warning we might have to sit through the night in future to make the deadline the Bill’s backers have set. I regret the haste we’re going at. Anyway, here’s what happened today. (I’ll be careful because it’s been suggested my tweets are stirring up a hate mob against colleagues on the committee. To be clear: I like and respect the backers of the Bill; their intentions are as good (or bad) as mine, and they don’t deserve any personal abuse.)

Another day in the Assisted Suicide bill committee. A series of amendments to make it safer were rejected.

The committee voted down amendments to ensure doctors can’t suggest AS to patients - even to children. 1/ There will be no requirement of support for those with learning disabilities or autism to ensure they understand what they are agreeing to and are making a free choice. 2/

Thread. Final day of evidence at the Assisted Suicide bill committee. It was by turns personal and philosophical. We heard from relatives of 3 people who had had - or whose families wish they'd had - AS. This was powerful testimony of the suffering we're trying to prevent... though it added nothing to the consideration of the detail of the Bill. For the third day running we heard from foreign enthusiasts of AS (still no opponents called to give evidence).

Thread👇. Second day's evidence in the Assisted Suicide bill committee. Today's witnesses blew apart the idea this bill is safe for vulnerable people. As Dr Jamilla Hussain explained it won't just be a new option for a few, but a new reality for everyone - and a very scary one (By the way, Dr Hussain contradicted Chris Whitty who told us yesterday that mental capacity assessments are excellent and 6 different docs would all give the same assessment to the same case. The system is not nearly good enough to be relied on, as this Bill does)

Fascinating first day in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill committee, hearing evidence from experts (most of them pro assisted dying). Main takeaway: it really isn't clear what shape this Bill will be in when it comes back to the Commons. Issues that arose: Chris Whitty admitted '6 months to live' isn't a precise science (no kidding: a majority of these prognoses turn out to be wrong). His main advice was not to tie doctors' hands with excessive safeguards; docs can judge capacity, and we shd not define 'terminally ill' too tightly.

Thread/
I've quickly digested the Leadbeater Bill, which was published this evening; I hope what follows reflects it accurately. The good news is we can stop this nonsense about 'assisted dying', 'shortening death' etc. Thanks, I presume, to the Parliamentary drafters who don't like euphemisms in statute, the Bill is explicit we're talking about assisted suicide - 'assistance to end their own life' - and the legislation it amends is the Suicide Act 1961. So that's clear.

Re-reading the diaries of Lord Alanbrooke, Churchill's Chief of the Imperial General Staff. The entries up to D-Day are full of Wiltshire, where US and British troops trained for Op OVERLORD at Larkhill, Netheravon, Aldbourne, and all over the Plain. Some entries from June 1944: 4 June
"Winston has taken his train and is touring the Portsmouth area and making a thorough pest of himself!"

5 June
Of de Gaulle: "I knew he would be a pest and recommended strongly that he should be left in Africa."

I said in the debate today that everywhere Assisted Suicide is introduced the scope or eligibility soon expands. A thread: Oregon legalised assisted suicide (AS) in 1997. In 2020, the cooling off period between first and second request for AS was reduced from 14 days to 48 hours if the prognosis is under 14 days. In 2023, Oregon removed the residency requirement so any US citizen can access AS.

I've signed the motion of no confidence in Mr Speaker. This isn't personal: he's a decent man and I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing yesterday. But Sir Lindsay allowed Labour to use the Islamist threat to change the way our democracy works. This is unacceptable. 1/ Starmer is even more culpable. He should be standing for democracy and against mob rule. Instead he used the threat of violence for party political ends, to wriggle out of a crisis created by Labour's unbridgeable division over Israel. 2/

I have a book out on 7 Sept, "Covenant: the new politics of home, neighbourhood and nation". (£20 but only £15 if you pre-order! ) These quotes give an idea of it...amazon.co.uk/dp/1800752113 ‘What a rare pleasure to read a book by a politician that avoids the usual dead, bureaucratic, policy prose and asks fundamental questions about how to live... A post-liberal, Scrutonian manifesto for conservatives’ – David Goodhart, author of The Road to Somewhere

Spot on from @MelanieLatest (citing @GoodwinMJ research)
'The party now has to make a choice. Does it want to restore the UK as an independent national project that upholds its historic culture, traditions and institutions?... 1/ ... Or does it want to finally break that culture apart on the rocks of social or economic individualism and anti-west ideological dogma?'
This is plain speaking and the language will alarm moderate Conservatives. But this is a critical moment when the nettle must be grasped: 2/

It doesn’t matter who has what job in Government if we don’t face facts about what the matter really is. The matter isn’t good or bad ministers. It’s the slow collapse of the economic and social model that the UK has had for 30 years. Since the end of the Cold War we’ve had... ... cheap money, cheap labour, outsourced manufacturing, New Public Management (fake markets & bureaucracy) in the public services, cultural globalisation, a growing techno-state, and total disregard for the things that give us meaning: families, communities, and the nation.

In June the PM asked me for proposals to sustain the community spirit we saw during lockdown. Levelling Up Our Communities is out today: see it (and the PM's response) here dannykruger.org.uk/communities-re….
My thanks to @dianabarran @dcms for advice & encouragement. Summary thread:
1/8 The crisis has exacerbated our social & economic injustices - and it has exposed the enormous strength of our communities. We need the latter to fight the former. In a nutshell, we need a new era of COMMUNITY POWER to replace the era of large public & private bureaucracies.
2/8

Two crucial & correct (imo) observations about communities and social care from @ProfDonnaHall inspired by @HilaryCottam follow. This is either profoundly radical & difficult or non-contentious & simple... or both

A short thread on selling chicken feet to China and avoiding another Boston Tea Party. The Agriculture Bill is in the Commons today. There's a lot of pressure from the NFU and Labour to bind the hands of future trade deals by amending the Ag Bill to say all imports must be produced to same standards as home-grown food.

Very concerned that many local businesses are still finding it difficult or impossible to access money through the Government's loan scheme. This is putting an intolerable strain on the owners and employees. The issue is not with Govt but with banks. 1/6 Many are simply unable to reach anyone at their bank who can help them. This is partly because the banks are overwhelmed with applications - but their application processes are too demanding, which is why there's such a queue. 2/6

Government must have made some mistakes in responding to Coronavirus, which with the benefit of hindsight we will be able to analyse. 1/4 But to suggest, as some media are doing, that there has been indifference, conscious neglect, or some sort of deliberate strategy to do harm, is deeply irresponsible - and harmful, as it will poison our politics in the aftermath 2/4

HM Treasury has done an incredible job to rescue the formal economy: most businesses, workers & self-employed have had a lifeline. The biggest gap now - and it stretches right along the front line of all our neighbourhoods - is the social economy: charities & community groups. 1/ These may be invisible to most of us most of the time but they are crucial in the fight against coronavirus - they provide the infrastructure of voluntary effort to support isolating households, especially the vulnerable and 'hard to reach'. 2/

Govt will make £330 bn available for low-cost loans to business - including up to £5m for smaller businesses with no interest for 6 months. Insured firms can claim based on govt action. Cash grants up to £25k for SMEs. All firms will pay no business rates for 12 months. For individuals and families, 3 month mortgage holiday. Work is underway with trade unions and employers to build a system of assistance for workers.

Lots of objections to the Stonehenge tunnel (announced in Budget today) in my timeline. Quick precis of why I think it's a good idea: 1) it will help local traffic, currently snarled up, 2) it will help traffic flow to the SW, which is vital for the regional economy, and 3)... ...it will restore the landscape around the stones, removing a tarmac road and recreating the ancient view. I fully appreciate many object to the dualling further along the A303 (tho this is needed for traffic flow) but...

Quick response to Ferdinand Mount’s well received attack in @LRB on the Johnson government for being un-Burkean ie. not sufficiently respectful of institutions and slow organic change. He has overlooked... ... the Burke who went to war with George III over political corruption and campaigned to abolish half the offices of state, especially those hoary with antiquity and irrelevance...